Renata asks, “Can you drive? That’s all I care about. One time, a boy told us he didn’t drive because of the carbon footprint. I put a footprint on his ass.”

Teddy grins, and it’s a lovely thing. “I ride a motorbike. But I’d love to take your Rolls-Royce out for a spin.”

Aggie rouses herself from her sleepy sunlit dozing. “Tell us more about yourself.” At the exact moment, Renata says, “How tall are you?” Why are elderly women obsessed with knowing how tall young men are?

“I’m twenty-seven. I’m six four. Like I said, I’m a tattoo artist, but I’ve also been a delivery driver.”

Aggie considers this. “Why are you not working in your chosen field?”

“I might try to get some freelance work. At night, so it won’t interfere.”

“We are very demanding,” Renata interrupts. “I want you always available to pick things up or drive us around. There’s a lot of dry-cleaning. It’s an easy job, I don’t know why young men have such a hard time with it. Get us flowers. Pizza. Restaurant reservations. Hmmm, what else?” Renata looks to me.

“Maintenance, cleaning, laundry, spontaneous compliments.” It’s an expansive role, based around swallowing one’s rage and pride. “Lots of running out for snacks and helping them order things online.”

“I can cook a bit too,” Teddy says. He keeps looking to me. Is he expecting me to ask something? Am I his safety blanket? I shield my page from him on the side of the table and write down:

? Tattoo artist/Delivery driver

? 27 yo, 6'4", That Hair

? Can cook; sincerely rendered compliment

I’ve also been keeping track of the points allocated and subtracted. Melanie can’t be faulted for thinking I expected meeting notes to be taken. Add Kind of uptight to my dating profile.

I put my hand into my hair, checking for unwinding strands. I bite back a yawn. I smush my lips around to redistribute my lip balm. Why is everything silent? I look up. Teddy is still looking at me. The sisters are looking at Teddy looking at me.

Aggie is smiling. “Doesn’t she look so pretty sitting in that sunbeam?” Teddy jerks his eyes from me in surprise. So that’s what it feels like to be visible for a few long moments. Like touching a live wire.

Renata adds, “There is an expression. Still waters run deep. Do you know what that means?”

“I do now,” he replies, again with that sincerity. “I really think I do.”

Just as I begin to get hot with embarrassment, Aggie says, “I take it that this job will be a stepping-stone, back to tattoos.” She is the Patron Saint of Merciful Subject Changes. I will light a candle for her tonight.

“One of my friends is setting up a second tattoo studio in Fairchild and I want to buy in. I’d manage that location. But I need the money by Christmas or he’ll sell the share to someone else.” His eyes come back to me like a reflex, and his next words are humble. “At least, that’s the plan.”

I know his father seemed to doubt his sincerity in pursuing this, but let’s get real. This is a person who could sell ice in a snowstorm. If he focused his charm and effort, he could have anything he wanted. Before Renata can shoot him down, because she does like taking potshots at simple goals and dreams, I reply: “Well, of course you’ll do it, Teddy.”

He’s surprised by how certain I sound.

“I’ve never been to Fairchild,” Aggie says. “How far away is that?” We are all already trying to calculate if he’ll be gone-forever gone.

He confirms that he pretty much will. “Five hours away. It’s a really nice town. Kind of like here, actually. But best of all, there’s no studios there. I researched it for my business case. There’s a community college campus and a military training base there, and they have to drive hours to get work done on their tattoos.” Sounds like he’s got a bigger stake in this than he first let on. My perception of him shifts a little.

“Why don’t you just ask Daddy to stump up the cash?” Renata asks with saccharine sweetness. It’s actually the question I wish I could ask. “Get an advance on that inheritance. Cash in, sonny boy.”

“I’m fairly sure there’s no inheritance.”

Renata asks, “Are you the only son?” Teddy nods, but he’s very uncomfortable. I’m just about to interject when Renata keeps going. “You’re probably hitting the jackpot eventually.”

“I have four sisters ahead in the queue. Anyway, I don’t take money from him. And he doesn’t give money to me. It’s an arrangement involving no money.”

Aggie says, “So, Teddy will have his studio. Do you have a goal, Ruthie?”

The question is asked in that slow kind way that people ask kindergartners what they want to be when they grow up. As a kid, I had an improvised veterinarian uniform made out of my father’s old white shirts, plus a toy ginger-striped cat with bald front legs from my rebandaging. Aggie’s just being polite, and this interview is not about me, but I find I want to answer anyway.

“I’m hopefully going to— ” I’m about to explain about Sylvia’s retirement and my more realistic office manager aspirations when Renata speaks right over the top of me like I don’t exist.

“Now, time for the practical component of your interview.”

“Okay,” Teddy says, looking reflexively to me.

Renata snaps, “You’re on your own. No clues, no hints. This is why young men have always infuriated me. They stopgap their inadequacies with competent young women.” She’s getting very angry now. “Early in our careers, we were like donkeys that the men in our offices loaded up with work. No more, never again. You’re the donkey now.”

“Of course. Sorry.” He is suitably chastened. “Hee-haw.”

“Here is three hundred dollars. Go and buy me a white shirt. Let’s see how clever you are, little donkey. You have one hour, starting now.” The money is slapped down. “Ruthie, sixty minutes, if you please.”

“She hasn’t done this one in a long time,” Aggie says to me. I go to their oven and set a timer. Just looking at how late we are in the afternoon, I don’t think he’s going to make it. Panic and glee are rising inside me.

If Teddy is surprised by this task, he hides it well. “Am I allowed to ask any questions about what sort of shirt?” He’s looking at the timer and setting his own on his phone.

Aggie shakes her head at his attempt. “Of course not, young man. Do your best.” Her eyes gleam with deep amusement, and for a split second I think she’s every bit the puppeteer that her sister is. “All you can do is your best.”

He looks outside across the manicured lawns. His father technically owns everything framed outside that window. It’s a degrading task for someone with the surname Prescott. He’s going to tell her to shove it. He’ll find another job.

“Easy,” he says. As his running footsteps depart, Renata lets out a howl of pure elation and we all grin at one another. It is luscious to make a young man run for his life. And just like that, no matter what he brings back, I am absolutely certain that Teddy got the job.

CHAPTER SIX

No one would guess my penchant for evening nudity by looking at me in my daytime wool knits.

My usual evening routine is to close all the drapes, take off my clothes, and walk around my cottage for a few minutes before my bath. It didn’t start in any kind of deviant way. Six months after I moved into this cottage, I had to walk out naked into the living room to find a towel in the laundry basket. It was the exact moment that I realized I have my own house and can do whatever I want, and now I’m addicted to that air sensation all over. But for however long Teddy hangs around here, I’m going to have to remain buttoned up.

It’s amazing how life works. You can wake up in your current existence and then go to bed with everything changed.

After a kitchen fire in the mid-1980s, this large cottage was converted into a dual occupancy dwelling, with a wall put right down the middle. I can hear my new neighbor shuffling around in his new home. There’s a sneeze, a banging cupboard door, a barked expletive, gentle fake sobbing.

I am gallantly committed to keeping to my routine. I’ll do the same thing I do every night, just with this new shimmer in my stomach. I preheat the oven. I go into the bathroom and light the row of candles on the back ledge. I drop in a blob of bubble bath and release my hair from its bun prison.

I’m exhausted from the email I sent to Sylvia. It was an impossible tone to achieve: Hi, how are you mixed with don’t panic but and a smattering of I have a bad feeling. A three-paragraph email took me almost an hour of redrafting and arguing with myself. I’ve never needed a bath more. I put one hand on the top button of my blouse and there’s a tap on the door.

“Sorry to bother you,” Teddy says when I open my door.

I’m still holding the button in a half in/half out purgatory and it’s pretty obvious I was about to undress. For a moment, my heart is in my throat. I don’t know him, and in this low light he’s positively vampiric, with sharp-looking teeth and an interested gleam in his eye.